Wednesday, February 21, 2018

Sing A Song Of Drive-Ins

Did The Boys Know A Place Even Better Than The Beach?

Shawn Nagy's Super Oldies is where I set my
online dial each morning. They choose beyond rigid playlists of Sirius and
whatever radio still plays way-back hits. The Beach Boys came up this week witha 1964 tune called Drive-In, which I don't recall as a single, and barely, if
ever, heard anywhere before. Drive-In was written by Brian Wilson and Mike
Love. There were plenty of pop songs about moviegoing culture and drive-ins in
particular, but few spelled out why young people preferred under-stars viewing,
though as Drive-In tells it, "viewing" was a least of reasons to
attend. I listened closely to the lyrics and tried plugging my own drive-in concept to the what the Beach Boys knew. We differed first and most
decidedly on climate and when those outdoor screens were lit. California screenings could go year round,
and did. Our drive-ins had a busy season (late spring, through summer), had to
take winter months off but for brave sites that offered heaters and sometimes
free coffee to patrons willing to brave the cold. Others just closed and took
lumps of months without the cash flow. I'd not ventured a
drive-in outside of summer before taking a date one January
to a banged-up print of Thunderball, and
that proved a mistake for myriad of reasons. North Carolina under-stars during winter was scarcely what the
Beach Boys knew in the GoldenState.

"Every time I have a date, there's only one
place to go. That's to the drive-in," begins the song. Families sought drive-ins for a cheap night-out, grill meals for all, with kids
within reach and likely to fall asleep. Teens conversely went to be with other
teens, loose from constriction that was home, and assured privacy that was
closed cars. To take a date was reason aplenty for going. "It's such a groovy place to talk and
maybe watch a show," maybe being operative word, for did it ever matter
what was on the bill? (exceptions, yes, like NC lure that wasThunder Road) The
drive-in was about community and freedom to move about, socialize, enjoy perks
like playgrounds, train rides, full-service food, that hardtops couldn't
supply. Theatre seats were confining, and management didn't like us jumping
in/out of them, except to go buy concessions. To talk at an indoor site meant
disturbing others, never an issue in open air that was drive-ins. "Forget
about the plot," say the Beach Boys, and indeed, who took time to divine
that, with so much else to distract us? Drive-ins saw their height in tandem
with television's rise at home. Both used movies more/less for wallpaper, or
white noise at best. Concentration patrons applied from bolted-down seats was no
more. People who went to drive-ins for the film were figured to need their
heads examined.

"Don't sneak your buddies in the trunk,
'cause they might get caught ..." was the BB's bid for social
responsibility, and makes me wonder if anyone ever suffocated for sake of free
admission. And what's a record for how many sneaks could fit in a trunk? Maybe
this is part-why so many venues charged by the carload. "If you say you
watch the movie, you're a couple o' liars, and remember, only you can prevent
forest fires" was saucy wink the band didn't generally go in for, but
everyone knew the purpose drive-ins served for youth, which is why parents saw
less comfort in offspring viewing outdoors rather that in. Much eventuality
traced back nine months to stolen time at the Starlight. For myself, our own
Starlight was site for oldies and second-runs not likely to play again within four
walls. But for the Starlight, there would have been no Brides Of Dracula or The
Curse Of Frankenstein in my young life, but short of a driving license (rare
among those age 11), who could see such treasure long discarded by downtown
first-runners? Drive-ins would go away for a most part ... demise was once explained
to me as result of the 70's gas crisis. Was that it, or did folks just get
bored with the habit? Where then, do young people go to gather, or do they
gather at all, other than online? For modern relevancy, the Beach Boys song could as readily be celebration for spinning bees, barn raisings, or vaudeville. Nothing renders a
lyric so quaint as mention of drive-in way of living so long
past.

Monday, February 19, 2018

Noir Stepping Closer To The Line

The Big Combo Is A Bracing 50's Slap

Getting goods on the
"Organization" is mission for bitter cop Cornel Wilde, who's hobbled
by love interest in moll Jean Wallace, she having begun as a good girl
corrupted by Richard Conte's untouchable hood. Conte was a last minute
substitution for Jack Palance, the latter dropped when he insisted that his
wife be given a top female spot. There is violence bracketed by talk (lots)
staged in dark spots like RKO once used for economy. Trade ads promised shock
along lines of recentDragnetand On The Waterfront, both hits, and positive
reviews looked back further to Scarface andPublic Enemy. Cornel Wilde's
independent Theodora Productions teamed with producer Sidney Harmon and
writer Phillip Yordan's Security Pictures to do The Big Combo, set for tee-off
on 9/10/54 in color/widescreen (later down-sized to black-and-white), Allied
Artists aboard as of 7/54 with commit to distribute. The latter's Steve Broidy
was busy upgrading AA product from humbler Monogram origin, The Big Combo to open February, 1955 with two others of crime-thrilling category,Murder Is My Beatand Dial 116.

Combo got bumped a month on AA's decide to up
its advertising budget and saturation-book the thriller for March '55. Cornel Wilde
and wife/co-star Jean Wallace guested on NBC-TV's Colgate Comedy Hour and reenacted
seven-minutes from The Big Combo to hypo its imminent release. That same month,
Broidy hectored an exhibitor conference re over-reliance on blockbusters that left
his smaller pics in the cold, warning them that if product like AA's dried up,
they'd be at the mercy of big companies who'd then ratchet up terms. For guys
like Broidy, it was non-stop war for playdates, his outfit obliged to crowbar
The Big Combo and others of AA label into theatres. Combo's director Joseph H. Lewis and cameraman
John Alton would drive later interest among noir fanciers who might have
embraced the pic tighter had decent prints been in circulation. You'd havethought it was a lost film for ugliness of DVD's, but these were
rotted fruit of Combo's Public Domain status. Now there is, at long last, a
Blu-Ray of excellent quality from Olive.

Saturday, February 17, 2018

Claw To Depression's Top

Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. Wants Success At Any Price (1934)

Released just ahead of strengthened PCA
enforcement, Success At Any Price took aim at shifty business practice, and
thanks to writer and committed communist John Howard Lawson, delivered its
haymaker to far greater effect than later films where Lawson and other
Hollywood Reds could but salt scripts lightly with political content. Success
was based on a play of Lawson's that was well received, denuded of Anti-Semite
theme, but otherwise laying timber to amoral Wall Streeters. Douglas Fairbanks,
Jr. starts off a rotter and pretty much ends that way; the picture doesn't pull
punches like you'd expect even of pre-coding where romantic leads are involved.
Finality of Fairbanks
with darkened and hollow eyes must have given pause to those who came, but this
being RKO in doldrums, fewer did (a mere $150K in domestic rentals). Much of
what this studio generated was like Warner programmers with life sucked out of
them, Success having no music, other than source, and playing dead serious all
the way. Much of that was Lawson getting in his licks; a print of Success At
Any Price was what HUAC members needed when he and other Unfriendly Tenners
took the stand during postwar investigations. Still, there is good writing and
dialogue here, Lawson full bore at bead on system soured. Frank Morgan's
remark at one point that he still believes in America comes across as hopeless
naïveté, if not outright idiocy. Such a line, and indeed much of Price's
points, would have been expunged had the picture been submitted later in 1934. Ancillary victim is Colleen Moore, fourth-billed and a doormat for all of 75
minutes Success lasts. It's tough reconciling her character here with the
Flaming Youth of ten years back. No comeback could come of casting like
this, but wasn't that case in the previous season's The Power and The Glory,
where she played a same sort of drab part? Success At Any Price turns up on TCM
and should eventually on Warner Archive as well, though elements will need a
scrubbing for DVD release.

Friday, February 16, 2018

Elvis Out Of Fatigues, Does Fatiguing Movie

G.I. Blues (1960) Has Edges Polished Off Presley

The Pelvis in uniform, being comeback error if
we're to regard Elvis as iconoclast or rebel figure, which he'd been to varying
degree in a first four before his country called. To tame the beast was Hal
Wallis' aim. Presley needed to be industrialized, a consumer good minus
potholes that controversy or poor press might impose. His knowing fans would
protest (the Beatles maintained Elvis was essentially through after his
service hitch), but how much of this singer's public caught merchandising drift?
Wallis was experienced, perhaps cynical enough, to know fads could be sustained
but for so long. If Presley was to last, it would have to be in safe vehicles
recycled on two-or-so a year basis like contract stars Wallis herded at Warners
and for his independent set-up with Paramount, for which distribution all his
Elvis output was made.

Et, Tu, Caricaturist? Squares In Selling Maintain Bungle Of The Pic

Just as other rock and roll acts were corporate
neutralized, so would be Presley. His having served made the rebel pose
untenable to sustain. An Elvis mustered out of uniform might wonder if this was
moment to try wings at straight performing along action lines, perhaps a combat
story as was engaged by other up-and-comers, or a western (picture him as one
of The Magnificent Seven). But wait, the music element had to be served, this
more lucrative in long runs than films that came and went. For Presley of the
60's, a film, any film, was there largely to sell records. G.I. Blues is post-Army Presley formula in
vitro, an awkward start. Weren't Elvis pics supposed to be just about Elvis? G.I. Blues has its star share focus with "pals" in
his unit, two guys principally, each so dull as to evaporate off the screen. One
romances the roommate of Presley's love interest (Juliet Prowse), to which '60 youth
must have chanted "Who Cares?" The other has sired an illigit kid
with a German townie (!), a plot element both soft-peddled (post-production
edits?) and of no use toward making G.I.'s 104 minutes easier to withstand.

Here too, was where soundtrack marketing took center, RCA's LP pushed in both ads and the trailer. Trouble wasthe
songs. They weren't much good, not a meaningful hit in the lot, nor a patch on
singles Elvis had been gettingout before, during, and after, his Army stay.
G.I. Blues takes place in Germany,
though all of Presley footage was done on Para's
backlot. What scenics there were came of a second unit Wallis sent over, then
projected behind Elvis and others doubled in the German shots. The
singer's filmgoer base had been teenaged --- now it seemed Wallis was throwing
nets over children, a puppet act Elvis shares being painful barometer.
This, and interminable business with a crying infant, was what disillusioned
fans held up as proof that Presley had been gelded. They were right as to that
and more, but Wallis was vindicated by grosses, the best he'd seen so far for
an association with Presley. G.I. Blues brought $3.8 million in domestic
rentals, a gain on $2.7 million King Creole had earned, and $3.3 million
Loving You took. This, of course, was all Wallis needed to prove he'd been
right, and so dye was cast (if a Technicolor one) for future Elvis output.

Wednesday, February 14, 2018

Lewton Back In Fang and Claws

The Leopard Man (1943) Brings Out The Beast In Showmen

Two Lewton Thrillers Combine For Chicago First-Run

Horror films were considered as good as means used to exploit them, a title
the most critical element, thus B units told by memo that their next would be
called Cat People, or I Walked With A Zombie, or The Leopard Man. Arthur Mayer
could decorate his Rialto front before seeing the product or receiving the
print, provided a title said it all. Art supplied to Mayer, from which he
scissored best images and then enlarged the lot, told all that was necessary
for sidewalk passers to know, in this case a leopard man preying on women “For
A First Time On Any Screen.” Such had been good enough selling for stage
melodramas and freak shows, the product stripped-down to barest essentials so a
Rialto premiere could prosper, and venues down the line would know better how to
promote product labelled The Leopard Man. Chillers by the 40’s looked more
urgently toward novelty, as in what your fiend does that no fiend has done
before. The Leopard Man played many situations with Captive Wild Woman, which
was Universal’s idea of a captivating title at least, and no matter if the
picture was good, fair, or stank. Critics singling out any horror film for
praise seemed perverse to extreme, which was why Val Lewton stood out like a
rose in a thorn patch. Signing mainstream pics would not have done him half so good as single-handed uplift of this lowliest genre. Trouble was Rialto’s mob and others
of simple appetite being left behind as Lewton’s product fell shorter, then
shorter, of what lurid displays promised.

The Lewton series for RKO was stair-steps that
went down, each new one earning less than the last. Trouble too was cost
creeping up as the series went along. B pictures could not sustain like this, being a category
where you needed to know close to a penny what your merchandise would bring
back. None of what came after Cat People would do as well as Cat People, it
being the only true sleeper of the Lewton lot. Still, however, there was
profit, if less of it, and The Leopard Man certainly had exploitable elements.
There was no supernatural card in the deck, as here was horror more
psycho-sexual than where monsters loomed large, so yes, you could say this was
a “First Time On Any Screen.” Ads argued that a leopard man,
serially killing helpless women, was a force driven not by bloodlust, but plain
lust. I’m a little surprised The Leopard Man didn’t gross better than it did.
Maybe word-of-mouth hobbled it. The Motion Picture Herald’s reviewer (5-8-43)
saw clouds gather at a preview screening, “There were perhaps a half-dozen or
morewalkouts during the unreeling. Noticeably lacking to this reviewer was the
tenseness among the audience that generally pervades the screening of a horror
thriller.” Scare pics almost never met heights of breathless advertising,
customers accustomed enough to that, but there were creep goals that had to be
met for value in your quarter, those walkouts certain to tell friends that The
Leopard Man fell short.

Censorship was what took juice out of gothic
fruit. The Code was just pitiless where horror films were submitted, and why
would studios spend chips arguing on monster behalf considering low priority
the stuff had to begin with? The Leopard Man was a mystery draped in horror’s
cloak. Val Lewton and director Jacques Tournear devised stalk scenes to justify
a chiller label, whole of The Leopard Man hanging on one/two segments to haunt
dreaming even of those otherwise let
down. Whatever the limits of what he could show, Lewton could always fall back
on all colors of his dark, which a PCA couldn’t very well ink out. Most Lewton payoffs occur where we don’t see, or barely can, as in long walk
for an adolescent girl who gets home only for the door to be locked against
her, helpless pounding no good to gain entry and prolonged enough so the
leopard behind will catch up. It’s a classic sequence for which The Leopard
Man is best remembered today. What happens after is more conventional business
(though not necessarily so in 1943) of human agency behind “leopard” murders
and ultimate unmasking of the killer.

The Leopard Man would enjoy the most extensive
revival of any Val Lewton film thanks to service as a second feature for 1952
engagements of King Kong. The combo was a summer phenomenon driven by TV
saturation. King Kong was, of course, what customers came to see, but The
Leopard Man went with it in virtually all situations, and like Kong would earn
more than in first-run. Many a moppet sat through The Leopard
Man for no reason other than to gorge on Kong a second time. Example of the pair filling seats was a June 1952 week, plus four holdover days, at the
RKO Palace in Cleveland, Ohio (ad at right), where Kong/Leopard "did a better
business than any first-run film the Grand has played in the last few
months." Lines down a city block brought complaint from
merchants that youngsters (60% of attendance, said Variety) were blocking
entrance to neighboring shops. Ads like the RKO Palace's told the story ... The Leopard
Man was mostly there to clear seats for a next run of the show crowds came for, but Lewton's thriller got massive trickle-down, as did others of
his backlog that returned during the 50's. A meaningful boost lay in fact that
RKO made safety prints of The Leopard Man for a first time on this occasion, hundreds of them to
service saturation dates for the double bill. Many of these prints would stay in circulation
for years to come. Afterlife of The Leopard Man was further enhanced by release
to television in 1956, its reputation burnished the more when historians took up
it with other Lewtons from the early 70's forward (Joel Siegel's 1973 book, Val
Lewton: The Reality Of Terror a major step toward that direction).

Monday, February 12, 2018

Murder Behind The Cameras!

The Studio Murder Mystery (1929) Is Prehistoric Whodunit

Killings afoot on the Paramount lot circa 1929,
the "Studio" given fictional name, though all of it is Para West
Coast, at a time when production was divided between that and New York's
Astoria lot. Release came mid-year, so there had been talkies before, though
still this wears a mighty stiff collar. Only fullest committed to old film will
apply, an effort since no satellite to my knowing beams The Studio Murder Mystery,
nor islikely to. There are some we've just got to give up for lost, including
lots of Paramount
even TV shunned when they first landed there in 1959. Studio suspect list
engages, however: Warner Oland, Neil Hamilton, Chester Conklin, victim Fredric
March, investigating Eugene Pallette. March and real-life spouse Florence
Eldridge do husband-wife sparring, she confronting him for non-stop
infidelity, a scene that from my understanding played often at the March
household, art mimicking life. The killer's ploy involves dummies and
ventriloquism, a challenge to good sound recording, which The Studio Murder
Mystery has not got, but a spur toward clunky fun. There are night shoots at the Marathon gate and in-out of sound stages only lately
repurposed for talk, so The Studio Murder Mystery has real docu-value to
forgive primitivism otherwise. Found it on You Tube, quality not half bad.

Sunday, February 11, 2018

Everglades The Novelty For Indian Fighting

Seminole (1953) Sees Uni Cast Swallowed In Mud

Released just short of Universal's conversion to
wide screens, Seminole is swamp-set and endurance trial for talent mostly
underpaid to do such muddy work. In-lead Rock Hudson, clear candidate as
Universal's next big thing, is backed by weekly-check support in either uniform
or feathers, contract players for U getting at least variety in their parts
(Hugh O'Brien a shaved-head Seminole, and it looks like he really took itoff).
Same-time treatment of Seminoles was WB's Distant Drums, more of which had been
shot in Florida,
but neither pic got made entirely there. These Indians had distinction of
colorful dress and repute for no quarter given to white invaders. Background
was at least a novelty and that was hoped to bestir interest not roused by mere
westerns off U-I rack. Budd Boetticher directs, not so recognizably as
later and better outdoor work enabled by superior writing (the
Scott/Brown/Kennedy group), but likes of Seminole made possible his move up to Columbia's
series now classified as classic. Uni used television heavily to pitch these
actioners, and had casts go on whatever local chat shows would have them. This
got productnoticed more effectively than that from bigger companies and talent
that snubbed the medium.

TheSeminole story is proposed as true, which
historians and even casual watchers know as bogus, but little of 1953 reviewing
cared, as what major critics would bother seeing Seminole at all? (Universal
could find no Indian women to play squaws, so used Hawaiians in their stead) Formula
is doggedly applied, though U-I had by now honed their westerns to sheen of
Technicolor and reliable mastery of camerawork. No one's outdoor lensing was more
handsome. Two weeks were spent on swampy backlot after briefest establishing
shots from Florida-dispatched second unit, to which Boetticher gave morale
boost by showing up in immaculate white Panama suit with wide-brim hat,
daring any of mud-soaked cast to sully him. They fell upon him, of course,
resulting immersion to six feet of "quicksand" poured for the film,
as duly reported in humor terms by Variety(7-21-52). Being good sport
enough to sacrifice his outfit and be hazed by Seminole cast would earn good
will for Boetticher and keep him on U's payroll for another busy year. Seminole
has surfaced in rich HD on Retroplex, and is available from Universal's DVD
Vault Series.